This study investigated the co-infection dynamics of Schistosoma mansoni and Ancylostoma ceylanicum in an experimental model. Two experiments were conducted to investigate varying infection orders. In experimental group 1, subjects were initially infected with A. ceylanicum, followed by S. mansoni infection. In group 2, subjects were first infected with S. mansoni, followed by A. ceylanicum infection. The co-infected groups were compared to mono-infected groups for further analysis. Parameters assessed included weight, fecal egg elimination, blood cell counts, IgG response, histopathological analysis, and granuloma morphometry. Results indicated that the timing of infections influenced weight loss. Co-infected animals lost weight similarly to A. ceylanicum-infected animals when A. ceylanicum preceded S. mansoni. The co-infected groups did not experience worsened anemia, despite both parasites being hematophagous. No linear correlation was found between S. mansoni egg counts and anti-SEA IgG production. The response to the S. mansoni adult worm antigen was significantly higher in the S. mansoni mono-infected group compared to the group previously infected with hookworm. Co-infection with A. ceylanicum after S. mansoni infection also interfered with the host response. It caused a delay in the peak of S. mansoni egg elimination compared to the S. mansoni monoinfected group. Additionally, fewer eggs were retained in the liver compared to single infections. These findings help elucidate the interactions between different parasites and their hosts in the same endemic area, providing valuable information to enhance strategies for disease control and management.

Digital twins are a new paradigm for our time, offering the possibility of interconnected virtual representations of the real world. The concept is very versatile and has been adopted by multiple communities of practice, policymakers, researchers, and innovators. A significant part of the digital twin paradigm is about interconnecting digital objects, many of which have previously not been combined. As a result, members of the newly forming digital twin community are often talking at cross-purposes, based on different starting points, assumptions, and cultural practices. These differences are due to the philosophical world-view adopted within specific communities. In this paper, we explore the philosophical context which underpins the digital twin concept. We offer the building blocks for a philosophical framework for digital twins, consisting of 21 principles that are intended to help facilitate their further development. Specifically, we argue that the philosophy of digital twins is fundamentally holistic and emergentist. We further argue that in order to enable emergent behaviors, digital twins should be designed to reconstruct the behavior of a physical twin by “dynamically assembling” multiple digital “components”. We also argue that digital twins naturally include aspects relating to the philosophy of artificial intelligence, including learning and exploitation of knowledge. We discuss the following four questions (i) What is the distinction between a model and a digital twin? (ii) What previously unseen results can we expect from a digital twin? (iii) How can emergent behaviours be predicted? (iv) How can we assess the existence and uniqueness of digital twin outputs?

What determines the legitimacy of aspiring rulers? Questions about support of the governed are central to theories of state-building and political order. Millions worldwide live under the influence of competing armed groups, yet we know little about how people in these contexts make comparative assessments of would-be rulers. We theorize how local norms, social networks, and the provision of goods and services influence these comparative judgments. We report results from a conjoint survey experiment in Colombia among nearly 2,400 respondents across 54 municipalities contested by multiple armed groups. Armed groups that take community norms into account and those that involve local leaders in decision-making are judged less negatively. Additionally, providing services and limiting violence both reduce negative evaluations of armed groups. These findings help us understand dimensions of political legitimacy under limited statehood and the effects of governance on civilian attitudes in areas of competition.

Ulakhan Sular provides one of the largest natural stratigraphic sections through ancient permafrost deposits in the Batagay–Betenkes region of the Yana Uplands of western Beringia, but their depositional environment, age, and paleoenvironmental significance are uncertain. To address these uncertainties, we report the results of reconnaissance observations of the stratigraphy, sedimentology, paleosols and soil-like bodies, plant and insect macrofossils, and geochronology of the permafrost deposits at the stratotype section of the Ulakhan Sular Formation. Sedimentologically, this formation is dominated by well-sorted, fine to very fine sand that contains fluvial, aeolian, and permafrost sedimentary structures consistent with deposition near the paleo-Adycha River. The fluvio-aeolian deposits have similarities and differences to periglacial fluvio-aeolian and aeolian deposits in modern arctic regions of Canada and Greenland, and Pleistocene deposits in Alaska, China, and northwest Europe. The remarkable thickness of aeolian deposits (~50 m) at Ulakhan Sular is attributed to abundant local sand sources, ample accommodation space, and intensive aeolian transport and deposition. Optically stimulated luminescence dating of quartz sand and post-infrared–infrared dating of K-feldspar sand suggests deposition of the Ulakhan Sular Formation during late Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 or MIS 5. The aeolian sand-sheet deposits are correlated with other cold-climate aeolian sand and silt (loess) deposits in Beringia and southern Siberia, indicating a regional episode of aeolian sand transport and deposition at a similar time to glaciation by the Eastern Siberian Ice Sheet.

Earth System Science stands as the future operating framework to monitor the pulse of the Earth, and to diagnose and address the challenges of global change. Magmatism and volcanism are primary processes connecting the solid Earth to the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. In addition to regulating the Earth system, they are both an unavoidable source of hazards and a tremendous resource of energy and raw materials. Accessing magma is the necessary next step in the exploration of our planet. It will enable us to develop next-generation geothermal energy (magma energy), to transform volcano monitoring strategies, and perhaps even to alleviate volcanic activity. Recent exploratory geothermal drilling activities around the world have serendipitously encountered shallow magma bodies in the Earth. Following these remarkable magma drilling occurrences, the Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) has been established in Iceland in order to create the first magma observatory – a world-class international in situ magma laboratory with access to the magma-rock-hydrothermal boundary through wells suitable for advanced studies and experiments. Here we review the importance of magma in the Earth system, present the multifaceted need for magma observatories and introduce the benefits of KMT as we enter a new generation of energy demands and resilience strategies.

Most scholars agree that candidates’ use of negative campaigning is based on rational considerations, i.e., weighing likely benefits against potential costs. We argue that this perspective is far too narrow and outline the elements of a comprehensive model on the use of negative campaign communication that builds on personality traits, values, social norms, and attitudes toward negative campaigning as complementary mechanisms to classical rational choice theory. We test our theoretical assumptions using candidate surveys for twelve state elections in Germany with more than 3,100 candidates. Our results strongly suggest that negative campaigning goes beyond rational considerations. Although benefit–cost calculations are the primary driver of the decision to attack the opponent, other factors are also important and enhance our understanding of why candidates choose to engage in negative campaign communication. Our findings have important implications for research on candidate attack behavior.

If public humanities is to realize its potential to benefit all in higher education and beyond, it must be published in some way – traditional or unconventional – and be discoverable.

As Chile embarked on a constitutional replacement process during its worst-ever drought, local environmental activists secured significant representation at the Constitutional Convention responsible for drafting a new constitution, and successfully integrated provisions on climate change and water protection. However, despite the popularity of these measures, the citizenry rejected the proposal. This article, using legal mobilization and constitutional reform studies, examines the dynamics of constitutional mobilization against climate change, presenting two major findings. First, the feasibility of constitutional mobilization hinges on the ability of activists to navigate the politics of constitutional change, as their tactical choices are crucial for enhancing the process’s legitimacy. Second, including environmental measures in a constitutional replacement process tie them to less popular provisions, potentially jeopardizing the entire process, delaying state action on climate change, and weakening activists’ standing. The data supporting these findings come from interviews with Constitutional Convention delegates, archival research, and participant observation. In a context where climate change is intensifying, this article underscores the unintended consequences and challenges of pursuing environmental goals through constitutional reforms.

We use deformations and mutations of scattering diagrams to show that a scattering diagram with initial functions $f_1=(1+tx)^\mu $ and $f_2=(1+ty)^\nu $ has a dense region. This answers a question asked by Gross and Pandharipande [‘Quivers, curves, and the tropical vertex’, Port. Math. 67(2) (2010), 211–259] which had been proved only for the case $\mu =\nu $.

The present study described and illustrated the larval morphology of the three first zoeal stages (zoea I–III) of Synalpheus fritzmuelleri and compared with the previous described larvae of this species. The results pointed out a variety of differences among the descriptions, most of them related to the type and number of setae and articulation of appendages. The first zoea demonstrates similarities shared with the zoea I within the genus besides the diagnostic described characteristics. Other incongruences were also found such as the lack of information about some structures, such as the maxillule in the zoea I, and the use of ambiguous terms do designate type of setae. Moreover, the more advanced the zoea, additional differences were found among the previous and the current descriptions. Due to that, the necessity to review and also add new descriptions for Synalpheus larvae proves imminent to establish a standardization in the morphological description that will strengthen the comparative relationship in the genus.

This article establishes a data-driven modeling framework for lean hydrogen ($ {\mathrm{H}}_2 $)-air reaction rates for the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent reactive flows. This is particularly challenging since $ {\mathrm{H}}_2 $ molecules diffuse much faster than heat, leading to large variations in burning rates, thermodiffusive instabilities at the subfilter scale, and complex turbulence-chemistry interactions. Our data-driven approach leverages a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), trained to approximate filtered burning rates from emulated LES data. First, five different lean premixed turbulent $ {\mathrm{H}}_2 $-air flame Direct Numerical Simulations (DNSs) are computed each with a unique global equivalence ratio. Second, DNS snapshots are filtered and downsampled to emulate LES data. Third, a CNN is trained to approximate the filtered burning rates as a function of LES scalar quantities: progress variable, local equivalence ratio, and flame thickening due to filtering. Finally, the performances of the CNN model are assessed on test solutions never seen during training. The model retrieves burning rates with very high accuracy. It is also tested on two filter and downsampling parameters and two global equivalence ratios between those used during training. For these interpolation cases, the model approximates burning rates with low error even though the cases were not included in the training dataset. This a priori study shows that the proposed data-driven machine learning framework is able to address the challenge of modeling lean premixed $ {\mathrm{H}}_2 $-air burning rates. It paves the way for a new modeling paradigm for the simulation of carbon-free hydrogen combustion systems.

We prove two sharp anisotropic weighted geometric inequalities that hold for star-shaped and F-mean convex hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, which involve the anisotropic p-momentum, the anisotropic perimeter, and the volume of the region enclosed by the hypersurface. We also consider their quantitative versions characterized by asymmetry index and the Hausdorff distance between the hypersurface and a rescaled Wulff shape. As a corollary, we obtain the stability of the Weinstock inequality for the first non-zero Steklov eigenvalue for star-shaped and strictly mean convex domains.

Since 2019, Ethiopia has embarked on a new “national project of peace and unity”. The government’s official discourse has been characterised by an uptake in the use of Pan-African and Pan-Ethiopian rhetoric. Strategically invoking visions of a united Africa and shared continental prosperity, the Abiy administration seeks to enhance its international reputation and rally African support for its domestic agenda. To overcome the pervasive ethnofractionalist tendencies in Ethiopia’s political landscape and consolidate the Ethiopian state within its present boundaries, the current government is selectively borrowing political strategies from previous administrations. This has produced a unique, new form of Pan-Ethiopian governance ideals. So far, the repercussions of this government discourse on political tensions in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora has received no scholarly attention. This academic article analyses the implications of the current Ethiopian government’s deployment of Pan-Africanist and Pan-Ethiopianist rhetoric on Ethiopia’s current political crises. This article argues that these Pan-Africanist and Pan-Ethiopianist rhetoric and ideals are paradoxically perpetuating divisive identity politics in Ethiopia’s domestic and diasporic political realm. This, in turn, exacerbates the most serious threat to Ethiopia’s national unity.

Aiming at the error estimation problem of a radar detection system when the variation law of system error is unknown, an improved Gaussian mean-shift radar dynamic error registration algorithm (IGMSR) is proposed. The algorithm can effectively adapt to the variation of system error when the variation law of system error is unknown. The IGMSR algorithm uses the mean-shift method to contribute different characteristics to the estimation results of different sample points, and constructs weight coefficients according to the deviation of sample points from the mean and sampling time. The simulation results show that more than 90% of the constant system errors can be eliminated; for the systematic error with slow change, more than 80% of the bias can be eliminated in real time, while a previous method of Zhu and Wang (2018) can only eliminate 60% of the systematic error and require the change law to be known. This method overcomes the influence of random error and abnormal point, and the estimation results are more robust.

A compact 8-port eighth-mode substrate-integrated waveguide (EMSIW) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna is presented in this paper. It consists of eight EMSIW cavities placed side by side sharing their open-ended edges which are separated by rectangular slots. High isolation (>22 dB) between the antenna elements over the entire operating band is obtained by the strategic placement of rectangular slots and vias. The open-ended region of EMSIW cavity resonator and the edges of the diagonal slots help in the excitation of TE110 mode at 5.5 GHz. The simulated bandwidth of MIMO antenna is 180 MHz, while the measured bandwidth is 220 MHz. The proposed MIMO antenna system has potential applications for sub-6 GHz communication systems.

A single-layer polarization converting metasurface (PCMS) with wideband is presented for polarization conversion and radar cross-section (RCS) reduction. The proposed PCMS is composed of metallic biconic shape resonator imprinted on a metal-backed F4BM dielectric substrate of relative permittivity 2.2 and loss tangent 0.001. The unit cell has a compact size of 0.16$\lambda_\mathrm{o} \times 0.16\lambda_\mathrm{o}$. A comprehensive parametric analysis, angular sensitivity study, bistatic and monostatic RCS analysis are conducted by illuminating the proposed PCMS using linearly polarized (LP) plane waves. The PCMS converts LP electromagnetic waves to their orthogonal polarization state in the frequency band of 8.7–24.8 GHz resulting in polarization conversion ratio over 90% with a fractional bandwidth of 96%. Additionally, the developed structure is applied in chessboard configuration, using phase cancellation techniques for RCS reduction, that achieve 10 dB RCS reduction across a wideband of 7.9–23.4 GHz. The unit cell and its rotated version has a cross-polarization reflection phase difference of (${180}\pm {37}{^\circ}$) in the operating band, which fulfill the criteria for RCS reduction. The chessboard configuration exhibits a scattering pattern with four strong lobes that deviates from the normal incident path because of the phase cancellation in normal direction. The experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated result. Applications for the developed structure include antenna design (gain enhancement and beam steering), target hiding, imaging, and microwave communications.

A co-relation between Schistosoma japonicum (Sj) and liver cancer (LC) in humans has been reported in the literature; however, this association is circumstantial. Due to the inconclusive nature of this association, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has placed Sj in Group 2B for LC, signifying it to be a ‘possible carcinogen’. Many epidemiological, pathological and clinical studies have identified multiple factors, linked with Sj infection, which can lead to liver carcinogenesis. These factors include chronic inflammation in response to deposited eggs (which leads to fibrosis, cirrhosis and chromosomal instability at cellular level), hepatotoxic effects of egg-antigens, co-infection with hepatitis viruses, and up-regulation of glycolysis linked genes among others which predisposes hepatic tissue towards malignant transformation. The objective of this work is to present the current understanding on the association of Sj infection with LC. Mechanisms and factors linked with Sj infection that can lead to LC are emphasized, along with measures to diagnose and treat it. A comparison of liver carcinogenesis is also provided for cases linked with and independent of Sj infection. It appears that Sj, alone or with another carcinogen, is an important factor in liver carcinogenesis, but further studies are warranted to conclusively label ‘infection with Sj alone’ as a liver carcinogen.